Lily Collins: the actress who won’t play daddy’s girl

Her father may be a famous pop name but Lily Collins is set on plotting her own path to film success, she tells Kevin Maher

Kevin Maher

Tuesday June 11 2013, 1.01am, The Times

Lily plays Clary Fray in Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

CONSTANTIN FILM INTERNATIONAL

Kevin Maher

Tuesday June 11 2013, 1.01am, The Times

Lily Collins walks into a bar. She cosies up to a square-jawed hunk and hits him with a sassy monologue about the transience of existence and the impossibility of the present moment that suddenly culminates in the suggestion: “Which is why I think we should f***.”

The film is Stuck in Love and, as far as character introductions go, this one is certainly memorable. For the 24-year-old Collins, hitherto known mostly for being the daughter of the former Genesis drummer turned multimillionaire solo act Phil Collins, and for starring as the cute, squeaky-clean Snow White in last year’s fairytale comedy Mirror Mirror, is taking a flamethrower to her nascent family-friendly reputation. And there’s more: as the movie’s anti-heroine, Samantha Borgens, Collins plays a young